With Mayor Bill de Blasio now backing a repeal of the Urstadt Law that lodges control of the city's rent regulations in Albany, the chances of success are looking better.

Mayor Bill de Blasio wants the city, not Albany, to control rent regulation.

In announcing his huge new affordable-housing plan on Monday Mayor Bill de Blasio added his voice to long-running calls by many city officials over the years to take back control of rent regulation from Albany. A state legislator who has been trying to do that for more than a decade thinks that the new mayor may have a chance.

The big difference? Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg never supported the repeal of the 1971 Urstadt Law, which gives the state Legislature power over rent regulation. Mr. de Blasio does. According to state Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, the real estate community seems to be on board with the new administration's broad push for higher density linked to creation of more affordable units.

"I don't accept history as a given," said Ms. Krueger, whose most recent "home rule" bill designed to bring power back to the city died in the Senate Committee on Housing, Construction and Community Development last year. "I think it is now more likely that the mayor and the real estate industry will come to the state with a package of proposed changes."

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The problem is that while the political winds have shifted in the city, in the state Senate they have not. Ms. Krueger and Michael McKee, a board member at the Metropolitan Council on Housing, point out that upstate Republican lawmakers, like state Sen. Catherine Young, R-Olean, have long voted against repealing the Urstadt Law. And the chances of them bowing to the mayor's request seem unlikely.

"The best way to bring down rents is to expand the number of housing units. It is a basic supply and demand issue," Ms. Young, who chairs the housing committee that voted against the bill last year, said in a statement to Crain's. "Changing the Urstadt Law would prove to be a disaster for the future of New York City's housing market."

If the mayor can secure the support of the real estate community for repeal, however, some observers say that that change could yet happen.

"You are always better off in Albany when you have a stronger and more diverse coalition, and having unlikely bedfellows can certainly be effective," Ms. Krueger said.